The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that scoring 25% of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is not a mandatory requirement for declaring a candidate the winner of an election, News About Nigeria reports.
The Apex Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is treated like other states in Nigeria.
The seven-member panel, led by Justice John Okoro, delivered their judgment today and dismissed Atiku’s petition, which claimed that President Bola Tinubu did not win the presidential election on February 25 because he did not receive up to 25% of the votes cast in the FCT.
The court held, “Are you saying that if someone receives 25% of the votes in 30 states but not in Abuja, they should not be the president? Is that how you interpret the law? That is not the law. The Supreme Court agrees with the Court of Appeal.”
Atiku, in a joint petition with the PDP, challenged Tinubu’s victory on various grounds, including the claim that the former Lagos State governor failed to secure the statutory 25 per cent of the votes cast in two-thirds (24 states) and the FCT.
The appellant argued in their appeal that the court should disqualify President Bola Tinubu on the grounds that he did not meet the requirements of the 1999 Constitution (Section 134(2)), which states:
“A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, if there are more than two candidates for the election, he has the highest number of votes cast at the election and has nothing less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.”
The Apex Court, in its judgment, also ruled that the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission to transmit results through the INEC Result Reviewing Portal (IReV) cannot be the basis for nullifying an election.
The Apex Court further noted that this failure did not in any way affect the results of the 2023 presidential election.”
